Suppression of Free Speech in New York and New Jersey, The.
Text Of A Forbidden Speech
Together With A Documentation Of The Censure
Goldman, Emma. The Suppression of Free Speech in New York and New Jersey. Being a True Account by Eye Witnesses of Law-Breaking By the Police Department of New York City, at Lexington Hall, on May 23, 1909....Together with the Full Text of the Suppressed Lecture by Emma Goldman and the Addresses by Leonard Abbott and Alden Freeman at the Thomas Paine Centenary...[East Orange, NJ: Alden Freeman], 1909.
8vo.; three photographic plates; printed wrappers; a tad soiled, rumpled; still, a nice survival of a fragile publication. In a specially made cloth folding box.
First and only edition of a scarce 28-page pamphlet printing Goldman’s abortive address: “The Drama, the Strongest Disseminator of Radical Thought.” The speech was “observed by the members of the Open Forum of New Jersey in a stable in East Orange after the President of the Forum, the Speakers, and 1,500 other citizens were By Force denied entrance to English’s Hall, which had been legally hired for the meeting by Miss Goldman and her manager, Mr. Reitman” (from the title page). Goldman’s biographer recalls the controversial incident surrounding the speech’s attempted delivery:
[Goldman] responded to all efforts to stop her lectures with vigorous free speech fights: going to court (often with the aid of an attorney) to defend her right to speak; writing articles in the press; organizing local free speech leagues to combat future attempts at police censorship. She recruited some of her most valued supporters during these fights. After one such incident in New Jersey, for example, Alden Freeman, son of the treasurer of Standard Oil and scion of a distinguished and wealthy New England family, became so incensed at the arbitrary action of the New York police that he invited Goldman to speak on his estate in the affluent suburban community of East Orange, New Jersey. Goldman held forth in a large barn and “roasted” the police before hundreds of cheering listeners. Freeman later became a generous financial supporter of Goldman and of various anarchist projects. (Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life, by Alice Wexler, NY: Pantheon Books, 1984, p. 179)
(#4662)
Print Inquire